The Nikon D850 is among the most advanced DSLRs with improved optical elements. However, the upgrade also comes with more buttons and menu settings to control. Here are tips for taking better photos with a Nikon D850 to maximize its shooting abilities and level up your photography.
7 Tips for Taking Better Photos with a Nikon D850
To take better photos with a Nikon D850, you need to set the appropriate image format, shooting modes, and exposure settings. You can also modify the white balance, focus points, and metering depending on the subject’s movement, lighting, and surroundings. Additionally, sync your flash to boost exposure.
Although the Nikon D850 is a high-performing DSLR camera, the success of your shots still largely depends on how you control the device.
Play with Shooting Modes
Even when using the top lenses for this camera, you can only unleash the camera’s full potential if you use the ideal shooting mode.
To shoot quality images using the D850, it’s best to use Manual Mode when you want more control over the exposure settings. Meanwhile, there’s Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority if you need assistance in balancing exposure.
Furthermore, set it to Single for daylight shooting and Continuous for low-light. There’s also Quiet for landscape photos to eliminate camera shake and Self-Timer for taking bracketed images.
Change Exposure Settings
There are many reasons why amateur photographers should upgrade their cameras. Among them is the ability to use various exposure settings to improve the quality of your shots.
- Ideally, use faster shutter speeds. For starters, set the D850 with a 1/100th of a second shutter speed, then adjust depending on the subject’s nature.
- Keep the ISO to a minimum, which is around 100 to 200.
- The f-stop depends on the maximum aperture of your lens. You can use f/2.8 to f/5.6 for general photography.
Modify White Balance Depending on the Available Light
While this depends on the available light in the scene, a good starting point would be to select a white balance setting that matches the ambient light.
For example, choose Incandescent when shooting indoors or Flash when relying on an external flash. Meanwhile, use a custom preset if you’re shooting in mixed lighting.
Choose the Right Image Format
Eye-catching visuals in color increase people’s desire to view content by 80%. Fortunately, the Nikon D850 already produces an excellent dynamic range to retain as many details and color elements as possible.
Set the Nikon D850 to RAW to ensure you can tweak those elements in post-processing. You can also apply Adobe RGB for color space because it has a more accurate color depiction on screen.
Set Focus Points
The Nikon D850 uses 153 focus points for flexibility in emphasizing subjects. However, you can set the camera to Single-servo AF if you’re photographing motionless subjects. On the other hand, use the Full-time-servo AF to improve the focus of moving subjects.
Practice Metering
Metering measures subject brightness in different areas of the frame to set exposure. You can take better photos with the Nikon D850 when you use center-weighted metering.
This metering mode lets you position the subject in the center of the frame so that the lighting in the background won’t affect the overall exposure.
Sync Your Flash
The Nikon D850 uses a full-frame CMOS sensor to enhance light-gathering efficiency. However, you might still encounter low-light environments. In such cases, you can improve lighting by setting flash sync speed to 1/250 and the flash shutter speed to 1/60.
Conclusion
Calibrating the camera settings is the best way to take better photos using the Nikon D850. Make sure to check the shooting mode, image format, exposure settings, focusing, and metering. These are just starting points, and you can experiment as you find what suits your photography style.